Mikhail
Kalinin, the son of a poor peasants,
was born in Verkhnyaya, on 7th November, 1875. He worked on his parents
land until going to primary school at the age of ten. He then moved
to St. Petersburg where he worked as a footman for a wealthy noble
family.
When he
was sixteen Kalinin found employment at a armaments factory. Later
he worked as a lathe operator at the Putilov Iron Works where he came
into contact with socialist workmen trying to form a trade union.
Kalinin
also joined the Social Democratic Labour Party
and began writing for the Rabochaya Mysl.
He also became active in the Liberation
of Labour, a Marxist group that had been
established by George Plekhanov, Pavel
Axelrod, Vera Zasulich and Lev
Deich.
In 1898
Kalinin was arrested because of his membership of Liberation
of Labour. After ten months' imprisonment he was exiled to the
Caucasus. He soon escaped to Tiflis where he found work as a metal
craftsman. However, he lost his job when he tried to set-up a trade
union in the factory.
Kalinin
became a railway worker until he was once again arrested in 1903.
The conditions were appalling in the prison in St Petersburg and in
protest he helped organize a hunger strike. The prisoners were badly
beaten and one of the men died of his injuries.
The 1905
Revolution brought about his release and he immediately joined
the Bolshevik faction of the Social
Democratic Labour Party. He helped establish the Central Union
of Metal Workers and began publishing a workers' newspaper.
Kalinin
was an outspoken critic of the First World War
and in November, 1916, he was arrested and exiled to Siberia. After
the abdication of Nicholas II he was freed
by the Provisional Government and
he returned to Petrograd where he took part in the October
Revolution.
In 1919
he became mayor of Petrograd and a member of Central Committee of
the Communist Party. On the death of Yakov
Sverdlov in March, 1919. Kalinin became President of the VTsIK.
Kalinin,
who remained loyal to Joseph Stalin after
the death of Vladimir Lenin, died in 1945.
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